Implications of Regional Peacekeeping - Assignment Example

Examples of independent regional peacekeeping organizations include ECOWAS/Nigerian peacekeeping in Liberia and Sierra Leone, CIS/Russian peacekeeping in Georgia, and Indian peacekeeping in Sri Lanka. Therefore regional peacekeeping should be under the mandate of Uthe N and all of its activities should be under the watch of Uthe N. Also, the UN should be able to monitor regional peacekeeping organizations' activities and operations (Sutterlin 2003).

Any regional peacekeeping organization needs to seek authorization from United Nations Security Council before it launches any peacekeeping mission. This goes against the fact that it is only United Nations Security Council that has the legal and moral authority to carry out any peacekeeping operation which the regional organizations do not have (Sutterlin 2003). In its charter, the UN has the primary mandate of maintaining international peace and security. This international organ despite the various challenges and limitations remains to be the authoritative organ to any regional organization considering conducting peacekeeping missions. Notably, most of these authority regional organizations are commonly referred to as UN peacekeeping missions. The need for authorization from the United Nations Security Council is a result of increased emphasis and focus on regional organizations. The dangers attributed to this are the diversion of attention, importance, finances, and resources for United Nations peacekeeping initiatives.
Regional peacekeeping missions should function as an interim force to contain violence and maintain peace before the arrival of a capable UN mission force from where they can be incorporated into the force or they are sent home (Sutterlin 2003). The reason for the establishment of interim regional peacekeeping missions is because of the associated political difficulties and the lack of adequate support resources to support the regional organization peacekeeping missions.

The arrival of the UN mission force is a relief to these regional peacekeeping missions because of their sustainable and predictable funding and the availability of oversight by the Security Council to the underlying peacekeeping mission operation. The UN mission force needs to integrate regional peacekeeping missions into their peacekeeping operation. This move will enhance and promote subsidiary and effective accountability regarding the peacekeeping operation. Partnership agreements are essential between the regional peacekeeping missions and the UN mission force as far as the challenges that the Security Council is experiencing (Sutterlin 2003). This has steered the interest of the Security Council in developing cooperation between the UN forces and regional peacekeeping missions. This cooperation takes the form of co-deployment, operational budgetary support, deployment, successive rotations, and finally the general management of the peacekeeping missions under the United Nations mandate framework (Sutterlin 2003).
Regional peacekeepers should work as part of the joint mission with the United Nations force to ensure that all the peacekeeping operations have a common goal and objective of achieving stability and peace among the warring parties. If the two peacekeeping missions are conducted separately then a conflict of interest may emerge. Notably, most of the regional peacekeepers have the aspect of seeing conflicts influenced basically by regional self-interest (Sutterlin 2003). Regional peacekeepers are characterized as usually having a close political, economic as well as military connection with the conflicting parties. Therefore it becomes difficult to achieve sustainable peace and stability if the regional peacekeepers do not jointly work as a team with the UN force mission. The incorporation of regional peacekeepers facilitates more familiarity with the nature of the regional conflicts unlike when conducted by the UN force alone. Letting them perform their peacekeeping missions independently may lead to regional biases in their operations and this hinders greatly the achievement of impartial peacekeeping(Sutterlin 2003).

In conclusion, regional peacekeeping organizations should not be substituted for the UN as far as peacekeeping missions are concerned. These regional peacekeeping organizations play important roles before the deployment of the UN force missions. They play important roles in peacekeeping training, capacity development, diplomatic and economic activities, security cooperation, and material and political support which are the core pillars for the success of any UN peacekeeping mission.
(Sutterlin 2003) Read More